Engaging Interiors Limited
Welcome to this three part series on Engaging Interiors Limited I have been working for myself for twenty years. My company has not always been called Engaging Interiors Ltd, back in the day it was called Crispin Williams Limited. Something that hasn’t changed throughout this time is the way we want to help independent businesses get off the ground and grow.
When setting up my business I had been working with PLCs for a couple of years whilst working for a larger company. My ambition was to not work with anymore PLCs and deal with the stressed out people that had to work within them. This is something I have managed to achieve with one exception. We have worked with mainly start up businesses and some small chains. The benefit of this is you work with people that are fully engaged in the journey, a journey that normally has lots of ups and downs but is much more personal.
To give you an idea of the sort of journey I have been on here is the time line for Engaging Interiors Limited
2006 -2010
My middle son Ned was due to be born and I had my annual review at Design LSM (as it was known back in the day). I had decided to quit so that I could spend more time in Lewes and support my young family (by being there). Engaging Interiors was born and I got a desk space in HRS‘ graphic design studio in the Star Brewery and met my make Mick. The first few years were mainly filled with freelancing jobs and the occasional local project.
2010-2012
On New Years Day in 2010 I met a client that wanted to make large alterations to his house. We were introduced via a mutual friend. This residential project that was more technical and involved than any other project I have worked on (except for the health spas) and would last more than 10 years. Up until this point the client has been working with an architect that was viewing the house as a selection of boxes. There was no joy in the flow of the house, a crap relationship with the garden and little attention paid to the abundance of light we were able to direct around the spaces. My favourite fact about how long this house took to build is that my youngest son Wren was not born when I met the client but was in secondary school by the time I took the final photos.
During this time I met Josie, an Irish restaurant owner in Hampshire. Her restaurant was in a basement and she wanted to take on the site on the ground floor that had just become available and transform it into a coffee and wine shop. Josie’s was one of our first clients to find us on google and engaging interiors has worked with Josies over the last 14 years and helped them expand to 5 coffee shops. We have got to know Josie and her family very well over the years.
The next thrilling instalment will be out in about a weeks time.